Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Staff Editorial: Kicked to the curb


Residents of the University-owned apartment building at 2109 F St. received letters Feb. 1 telling them to leave by May 31, no matter how long their leases run. GW has the legal right to revoke the leases, but its use of this privilege is alarming. Giving just four months notice and providing no accommodations for evicted graduate students, GW has wronged its own students in an attempt to stave off a self-inflicted housing shortage that comes as a result of an increasingly bloated student population.

GW made a strange choice in announcing its intent to convert 2109 F St. into an undergraduate residence hall and turn Francis Scott Key Hall over to graduate students – albeit not the graduate students displaced by the decision. With the D.C. Board of Zoning Adjustment demanding that GW house 70 percent of undergraduate students within the official campus boundaries, trading FSK for the F St. building and losing more than 50 beds in the process appears to be a very bad idea. Instead, administrators should house graduate students in Aston Hall, which the BZA has said falls outside the campus boundaries and undergraduates living there will not be counted toward the 70 percent benchmark.

Regardless of the plans for the buildings on campus, the graduate students who will be forced to leave 2109 F St. should be offered alternative housing until their current leases expire. GW has a responsibility to treat its students fairly and with compassion. Not honoring leases – despite whatever escape clauses GW insists on including – is reprehensible behavior that falls far beneath even the lowest standard of service students expect from a university.

GW is exempt from landlord-tenant laws when dealing with students in residence halls, but this exemption should not allow administrators to mistreat tenants renting apartments outside the residence hall system. GW should not be allowed discriminate against these residents simply because they are students. They should be afforded all the rights of any other tenant in the District, and their leases should bind the University to provide them adequate housing.

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